As a root user, switch to text mode when installing video card drivers.

/sbin/init 3

Install the NVIDIA kernel driver.

sh /[path_to_driver_file]/NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-[driver_name].run

Once the NVIDIA driver installation is successful, revert to graphical mode by starting X.

/sbin/init 5

OR

startx

IMPORTANT: Some recent Linux distributions include an open source driver for NVIDIA graphic cards called "Nouveau". This driver must be disabled in order to install the NVIDIA drivers—refer to the NVIDIA documentation.